Editorial Bends Reality on Parental Notification Law

In Pennsylvania, where there is a hotly contested Senate race between two anti-choice candidates, we'd expect to find editorials supporting the Senate's action this week on the Teen Endangerment Act. The Lancaster New Era couches this, as do supporters of the bill, as an issue of parental notification and NOT as placing limits on abortion rights.

They couldn't have created a more ridiculous "stickman" argument:

In Pennsylvania, where there is a hotly contested Senate race between two anti-choice candidates, we'd expect to find editorials supporting the Senate's action this week on the Teen Endangerment Act. The Lancaster New Era couches this, as do supporters of the bill, as an issue of parental notification and NOT as placing limits on abortion rights.

They couldn't have created a more ridiculous "stickman" argument:

Opponents characterize the parental-notification bill passed by the United States Senate on Tuesday as "anti-abortion," but they're missing an important point…The bill, approved 65-34, won't prohibit a girl under age 18 from crossing a state line to get an abortion. She just can't do it without the consent of her parents…The child and her parents would not be subject to criminal penalties (for having an abortion across state lines).

Dishonest reporting at its worst here! What are they trying to prove? The issue "opponents" of this bill have with it is the parental notification part – no one is going around claiming this legislation will threaten Roe v. Wade. Sure, by claiming that this issue is about preserving "parents' rights," the Lancaster New Era might make some of its readers happy. But it ignores some issues at hand. Parents' rights should be respected, when the parents are respectable and act in the best interest of their children.  But that is not always the case.

In an ideal world, of course a young woman would be able to communicate with her parents about all of life's challenges, about the feeling she is having, about the "love" she is certain will last forever that has led her, and her "equally commited" boyfriend, to decide to have sex.

REALITY CHECK… Some parents just don't foster that sort of open communication with their children. In fact, many do everything they can to avoid communication, or worse, make the communication so judgmental and condeming that a child just doesn't feel they can go to their parents when they become pregnant at age 15.  And, even worse, there are those circumstances where a parent was complicit in the pregnancy.

Government regulation will now force children in potentially abusive households – physically or emotionally – to confront difficult issues in a dysfunctional family, or go to court to avoid them. Maybe the parents whose relationship with their child is so weak they need a law to force communication should take a look in the mirror? Perhaps those who want to reduce abortions should start to understand that prohibitions and restrictions do not change these situations – education and communication do.

And if the New Era is concerned about crossing state boundaries, just imagine a world without federal protection of a women's right, where some states protect women's rights and others do not.